by Sonali Dev
“I’m taking us back to our real lives.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
If only India had known that a broken heart could hurt like this. Like a fractured bone ripping muscle and sinew from skin, but also not quite like that. Physical pain was localized; this was a full-bodied hug of pain. Her thoughts hurt, her breath hurt. Her inner self felt shattered, and acknowledging that felt like a betrayal of everything she’d ever believed.
It had been two weeks since she’d left him at the foot of the mountain. Time needed to hurry up and live up to its reputation of being a healer.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Tara asked.
India folded her mother’s T-shirt with more force than was strictly necessary, when what she really wanted to do was crawl into her mother’s lap and cry until she couldn’t breathe.
“I spoke with Dr. Ung this morning and your viral counts are down. So it’s actually really good news.”
Before her mother could catch her eye, India put away Tara’s folded laundry and tried to slip out of the room, because, darn it, a wave of nausea was washing through her again. Something that happened each time a Yash-related memory flashed through her—his scent, the warm pressure of his touch, the gravel in his voice.
Right now the feel of soft stretchy cotton in her hands was bringing it all back.
God, why had she kissed him? Why? Now she was stuck with reliving what that felt like. She got to feel him trembling when her fingers traced his scars. The worry that he may not get help for all the trauma he’d buried wouldn’t leave her alone.
“India,” her mother called after her. “Sweetheart, stay and talk to me. Just for a moment.”
She turned. “Is something hurting? Do you need pain meds? Is it nausea? Try to stay in bed. Should I make you tea? Tea will help.” Stop babbling. Mom is going to see how you’re feeling if you don’t stop babbling.
Fortunately her phone beeped with a text. Her heart pounded even though she knew it wouldn’t be Yash. She’d taken his phone from him and deleted her number.
Her profile picture on his phone had been a bowl of overnight oats. Which was the most heartbreakingly sweet thing she’d ever seen. Also she could no longer eat oats, because, yes, it hurt too much.
“Do you really think I don’t have your number memorized?” he’d asked, those stubborn eyes refusing to look away as they started down the mountain, trying not to touch on the narrow trail. Then her feet had started to bleed again and he wouldn’t budge until she climbed on his back and let him carry her piggyback.
“I get to help you too. You need to accept help too. Not just give it. You tell me I need to control everything, but by never letting yourself need anyone, you’re controlling everything too.”
If he was right, she should never have climbed on, because now she controlled exactly nothing. Holding him with her entire body had been the last thing she should have done. He was concerned about having memorized her number? Her body had memorized every detail of his body, her heart was already way ahead in that contest.
“When you decide to send me a text or call me, in the time that it takes you to type my number into your phone I want you to talk yourself out of it.”
“I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want to live a lie.” Then he’d looked at her in that way he had. His Promise Eyes. “If you trust me, if you give me a chance, I will find a way for us to be together. I swear.”
“Stop it. Stop making this harder than it is.”
But when he’d leaned into her and kissed her one last time against China’s car before she drove off, she’d had not one single defense.
She was human. She was giving him up. She deserved one last kiss.
You deserve all of him. You deserve to be happy.
“Who’s that?” Tara asked, snapping her out of her trance.
She checked her phone. “It’s China. She’s been texting me silly things that are happening in the movie she’s watching with Brandy.” At least China was being kinder to Brandy, who’d been bringing her DVDs of Laurel & Hardy comedies that were not on any of the streaming services. They were probably the only two millennials in all the world who enjoyed black-and-white comedies.
“I think China’s going to be okay.”
At first China had barely left her room, and India had sat with her between her brutal schedule of classes and clients as China cried wordlessly. Because sometimes there were no words to ease the pain. Then last week China had come down to the studio and started to help Ellie with the front desk and a few days after that Brandy had started bringing movies over. Yesterday India had heard her sister laugh for the first time since she’d returned.
“I think so.”
“That’s one less child of mine walking around like her life is over. You two have been breaking my heart.”
This was terrible. Mom needed to heal, not be sad about her children. “I’m so sorry.”
Before Tara could answer, China ran into the room, Brandy hot on her heels.
“What’s the matter?” Tara and India both said.
“Nothing,” Brandy and China said together, and China grabbed the remote sitting next to Tara and pointed it at the muted TV and turned it off.
Unfortunately, before the TV blinked off a photograph flashed on the screen. A photograph that made India sink into the bed behind her, because her legs buckled.
Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel her entire body vibrating with it. She held out her hand to China. “Give that to me.”
China blinked, slipping the remote behind her. “Give what to—”
India stood and jabbed her finger into the power button on the TV and it flashed on.
China pointed the remote at the TV, trying to turn it off again, and India yanked it out of her hand.
“India, please,” China said.
The local news was talking about photographs that had been released by the National Enquirer. The pictures had been verified by experts as being legitimate, with no Photoshopping.
The pictures under discussion were her and Yash kissing against China’s car. Like their life depended on it.
The remote dropped from India’s hand.
The jaws on the three women watching her also dropped open.
Yash appeared on the screen, completely calm and composed, a picture of poise and power, his usual vibrancy tinged with just the right amount of anger for the situation. He was one hundred percent in PR mode. India felt like someone had drugged her, aware of her surroundings but too confused to know what anything was. Naina held his hand, a supportive girlfriend.
“This is all a little intrusive,” Naina said to the woman doing the interview, who had an impressive air of a serious journalist. “Yash and I are private people when it comes to our relationship. We’ve never lied about that. This was a personal moment between us. It’s completely unacceptable for the media to violate us this way and to try to profit from it.”
Wait, was Naina claiming it was her in the photograph?
The journalist looked appropriately embarrassed on behalf of her profession. India could picture Rico Silva and Nisha brainstorming which journalist would have the highest damage control impact before settling on this one.
“I had just returned from a trip, Abdul Khan had just woken up from a coma, it was an emotional day,” Naina went on with so much indignation that for a moment even India believed that she was the one in the pictures.
Don’t pan to Yash. Don’t pan to Yash.
The camera panned to Yash.
His face was set in stone. Disappointment and dignity emanated from him. In his eyes was nothing.
He slid his hand out of Naina’s. “I don’t believe that, when three million people in this state are without health insurance and three thousand gun deaths have happened this last year alone, this is the big news story. My opponent wants to roll back regulations and increase our carbon footprint and make our wildfires worse, he wants to cut spending on health
care and he just got thirty million dollars from the NRA, and this is the big news story. I had to cut short a meeting with California Black Caucus leaders in L.A. to address this?”
Both the journalist and Naina smiled like proud mother hens. Then the journalist turned her gaze on him again, sympathy turning to purpose. “I want to talk about your meeting with the Black leaders and the other issues on your platform, but it would be disingenuous for me to not ask, Yash Raje, are you having an affair?”
Breathe, India told herself. Breathe.
Naina laughed, somehow managing to make her amusement cynical yet endearing. “I love that I’m sitting here telling you that woman is me and you need to ask a man if I’m telling the truth.”
For the first time India registered that Naina had cut her long hair. It was now as short as India’s, and cut exactly like hers in the picture, which showed almost none of India’s face. The sick churning in her stomach rose up her throat.
“I’m immensely grateful for Naina’s support,” Yash said without looking at Naina. “She has supported me and my dreams since we were in grade school and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
Naina took his hand again and squeezed it.
His eyes rested fleetingly on their joined hands, and India thought she would cry. Then his gaze came back to the camera. “The only other thing I’ll say on the matter is that there is nothing clandestine or nefarious about that picture. It was an honest and private moment, and it should not have been violated. I’m in love with the woman in that picture. And that’s the truth.”
India’s gaze clung to his across the screen, and for a moment it was just the two of them in the world. Then they went to commercial. Never in her life had she felt so many things, but the overriding sense was one of disorientation. This could not possibly be her life.
“India?” Tara and China said together, as India stared at the brightly patterned rug on the bedroom floor. God, please don’t let them see.
“India?” They both said again, and she heard her name in his voice. Their stupid dance: India? Yash?
She looked up.
“What is going on?” China asked, also sliding the question sideways to Brandy.
“You heard the woman. She and Yash were caught on camera.” India picked up a throw on the bed and started folding it. “They should be a little more careful.”
“India! Who is idiot enough to believe her?”
Hopefully, all of California, given that India’s face was not visible in the pictures. But that was China’s car they were leaning on. Those were India’s clothes. The rudraksha beads on her wrist were her beads. And this was her family. They knew.
India shoved the throw at her sister. “Anyone who has an interest in Yash winning needs to believe her.”
That stopped China in her tracks, and India took advantage of it. “I have a class to teach.” With that, she left.
A PERIOD OF three weeks should be enough for the pain to lessen, shouldn’t it? Twenty-one days was the magic number for setting a habit, wasn’t it? Apparently it wasn’t long enough to break a habit. Or Yash Raje was just a tough habit to break. It would happen, eventually.
After leaving him at the foot of the mountain three weeks ago, India had taught four classes a day along with seeing clients and packaging the incense Tara was churning out. If she left even a moment open, everything started to spin out of control.
Nights were especially brutal.
A lifetime of mastering how to empty her mind, how to focus her breath, how to live in harmony with the universe even when it didn’t give her what she wanted, and here she was, with no clear path for how to get past this.
“You’ve been in here for hours.” China tiptoed into the yoga room.
Before India could jump up, China sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place. “Your students have been gone for half an hour.”
Had it been that long?
“Should you be teaching so many classes?” China asked, her tone gentle, careful.
“Who’s going to teach the classes if I don’t? Who’s going to make the incense sticks? Who’s going to see clients?” Not everyone could fly to the other side of the world on a whim.
Good thing she didn’t say that last part, because as soon as she said what she did say, guilt gripped her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. You’re stretched too thin. I get what you’re doing.”
India tried to stand, but China held her back again.
“I should have seen what was happening. I did. I saw how he looked at you. I should have asked you about it, but I was too wrapped up in myself. Can you forgive me?”
“You’re misunderstanding the situation.”
“India, I just spent six months with someone who made me sign an NDA to make sure no one found out about us. What Brandy said to me the other day was true. ‘NDAs just mean you can’t talk about it. What’s obvious is still obvious.’ You and Ya—”
“China! I told you. You’re misunderstanding the situation.” India’s heart raced and ached. The only way she knew how to bear this was to never talk about it. “The only reason I’ve had to work this hard is because . . . because there’s something Mom and I haven’t told you.”
China rolled her eyes.
It was time to tell her anyway. They were behind on the payments already. The late notices would start soon. India needed help.
You need to accept help too.
“Mom canceled her health insurance.”
“What? When?”
“Before the diagnosis. There’s no insurance, and there’s nothing to pay for her treatment with. That’s why I can’t cancel classes. We need every penny that comes in.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mom asked me not to, and you were already dealing with too much. I’m only telling you now because . . . well, I haven’t come up with a way to pay the medical bills except . . . except . . .”
China looked devastated. This wasn’t how India had wanted to tell her. “Finish that thought, India.”
“I’ve been looking for a real estate agent to come in and look at the studio.”
China sprang up, almost stumbling back in her haste.
“You can’t decide that! This is not your home alone.” She ran out of the yoga room, and India followed her.
“Just because you run the studio doesn’t mean you own it.” She was yelling. “You can’t sell our home.”
Ellie stared at them openmouthed. Mom was sitting next to her, helping her shut down for the day, which meant Brandy was here to get her.
Both India and China spun around and saw Brandy sitting on a bench, an open magazine in her lap.
“Who’s selling our home?” Mom asked from behind them, voice eerily quiet. They spun back around to face her.
“It’s just an option, Mom,” India said just as quietly, because it was time to ask for help. It was past time.
She couldn’t make her mother’s medical bills go away.
“Except it isn’t an option. Five Hundred High Street will leave the Dashwood family over my dead body.”
“No, Mom. Your being alive is bigger than the studio, bigger than all the memories in this home.”
Tears sprang in China’s eyes. “It won’t come to that.”
It had already come to that. “I paid the last installment from the mortgage, which we are now behind on. There are too many bills and we have nowhere to get the money from.”
“Whatever I had saved up, I spent on going to Korea. God, what an idiot I was,” China said.
“You were not an idiot. You were brave enough to follow your heart,” India said with too much force.
Tara and China turned matching sympathetic expressions on her.
“I can’t believe I’m putting you girls through this again. After you drained everything to save the building,” Tara said.
Before they could respond, Brandy cleared her throat.
“If you don’t mind me interjecting . . .”
China smiled. “We mind you using the word interjecting.”
Brandy smiled back. “I think I might have a solution. A business proposal, if you will.”
“Well, then spit it out. We kinda need a solution right now,” China said.
Turned out, Brandy’s parents, who had done nothing but abuse and neglect her when they were alive, had left her all their wealth after they died. She hadn’t touched a penny because their only condition had been that she could not donate it to charity. Yes, that’s the kind of lovely people they were.
“Let me invest in the studio. You’ll have the money up-front, and I can be as silent an investor as you want me to be. I haven’t touched the account since I inherited it, and if I don’t soon, it’s going to become an inactive account and the state will get the money. I believe the studio is a sound investment. This way I’ll have a retirement fund and Ellie will have a college fund and I don’t have to use the money directly. Because if I touch that money directly, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
For a full minute everyone was silent.
“You would do that?” China said finally. “Why?”
“That money was always a symbol of all the ugliness family was synonymous with for me. You three have taken Ellie and me in, you’ve become our family in such a short period of time. Using the money to help you will be perfect.”
“It’s like it’s dirty money from the Mafia or something and you’re laundering it for us with goodness!” Ellie said, and they all smiled.
China threw her hands around Ellie and hugged her, then Tara joined in. “Come on,” she said to India and Brandy, pulling them into the hug. “There’s plenty of time to be sad about things. This is a good moment.”
India squeezed into the circle of love. Yes, this was a good moment.
“This reminds me of the time we all jumped into the sewer to help retrieve a lost medallion.” Tara had her dreamy storyteller face back. “It took months to get the smell off, but things you do for love always have lingering effects.”
China and Ellie started giggling so hard Brandy had to thump their backs.
